In a Hopeless Place
by Cap'NCupcake
Summary: Blaine had plans for his life - become a lawyer, fall in love, start a family, don't be a failure. Getting diagnosed with breast cancer was never part of that plan. - Cancer patient!Blaine, chemo nurse!Kurt
1. Chapter 1

The low volume of the TV set in the corner was practically screaming at Blaine as he sat in the near-silent waiting room. The secretary was filing her nails with a focused scowl, and Blaine was mentally debating with himself as to whether he should ask about the wait yet again.

He had been sitting there for nearly twenty minutes, left with his thoughts and nothing to distract him. At night, there was always the television or the uneven surface of his ceiling where images were hidden away for the sleeping mind - a clown here, a dog there. During the day, there was work. Always work. Nothing but work. A new case that needed to be won, new research that needed to be found, new paperwork that need to be filled out.

But now?

There was nothing. The TV in the corner was stuck on an infomercial about a fitness program that he didn't need. All the magazines were outdated and full of gossip about celebrities he didn't care about. He had left his iPod on the counter that morning before he left, too flustered to remember a jacket even in the chilly winter weather.

There was nothing to distract him from the one thing that had tried and tried to worm it's way into his thought process, and this time, he couldn't just push it away like it was nothing. He had to face up to it eventually. He knew that. He was just delaying the inevitable.

He had cancer.

Breast cancer, to be more specific. Blaine couldn't help but laugh humorlessly at that. The gay kid would end up with breast cancer, wouldn't he? If only his old tormentors could see him now. He idly wondered if they would feel bad for what they did. For making every day a nightmare. Would they have treated him so badly if they had known he would die such a young death?

And that's the other thing Blaine refused to think about. Death. To be honest, he didn't want to die. At least not yet. There were so many things he still had to do. Get married. Adopt some kids. Go skydiving. Eat octopus. Learn all the words to a rap song. The Gallon Challenge.

He couldn't do any of those things bald and weak and puking his guts up every five seconds.

He couldn't do any of those things dead.

Blaine's doctor had reassured him that everything would be fine. The tumor was too large to surgically remove at the moment, but a few rounds of chemotherapy would shrink it a bit. It would then be removed along with the breast tissue on the right side of his chest. He didn't want to have to do this again. And then everything would be okay.

He would be fine.

He wouldn't be dead.

Blaine was finding all of that too good to be true.

"Blaine Anderson?" a lyrical voice called out. Blaine looked up to the doorway - the one he had mentally debated running out of multiple times, the one that had taken him two and a half minutes to open - to find a man standing there. He was wearing pink scrubs and no shoes, a bright clipboard rested in his hands. His smile was wide and comforting, and he was staring straight at Blaine with questioning eyes.

As he stood up and gave the nurse a small, nervous smile of his own, Blaine tried to remember how to breathe. In and out. In and out.

"It says it's your first time," the nurse said softly, closing the door after Blaine and leading him down the hall a bit. He tapped the clipboard lightly with a long, delicate finger and arched an eyebrow in Blaine's direction.

He took a moment to register that the nurse was actually talking and, more specifically, that he was actually talking to _him_. Blaine closed his eyes and shook his head slightly to clear his thoughts. "I'm sorry?" he asked gently as the nurse pushed open yet another heavy white door and ushered him inside.

The room was large and bright, floor to ceiling windows covering the wall to his right. Counters full of food and refreshments, along with large cabinets storing blankets and pillows separated the room into two. Dozens of chairs lined the walls, patients connected to all sorts of beeping machines sat in every other one. The fluorescent ceiling lights seemed dangerously bright as the nurse led Blaine over to a chair in the far corner.

"It's your first time receiving chemotherapy, correct?" the nurse asked Blaine once more.

Blaine hesitated a moment before nodding just slightly. "Yeah," he mumbled as the nurse pointed to the plush, peach-colored chair in front of him. He gulped and sank into the seat slowly. "It's… It's my first time."

"Well then," the nurse stated clearly, a smile on his lips as he typed quickly at the computer log-in screen. He turned to Blaine and grinned down at him before extending a hand in greeting. "I'm Kurt, your nurse for this evening."

Blaine paused for a second, staring at the hand in front of him intently. It was pale and thin - the fingers long and the skin taut. He took it in his own hand, giving it a shake that was far less firm than normal. When his gaze followed up the arm and into the nurse's - Kurt's - eyes, Blaine was slightly shocked at the kindness there (Also, what the hell color was that? Were eyes supposed to be that mesmerizing?). It wasn't like he had expected to be tortured during his chemo treatment. He just hadn't expected to look around and see smile after smile on both the nurses' and the patients' faces. There were no elderly bald women hunched over in their chairs, coughing up blood and petting at their wrinkles. There were no men in smelly bath robes attached to oxygen tanks and getting blood transfusions.

Aside from the occasional bald head, everyone looked rather… normal. Some of the patients looked happy even. Blaine watched the woman a few seats down from him. A man he assumed was her husband sat in the chair next to her. He seemed to be in the middle of telling her a story as he held her hand tightly and talked a mile a minute. The woman was laughing hard, bringing up a hand to make sure the scarf tied around her head was still on right. The man in the plush chair to Blaine's left had his head buried in a book as the younger man Blaine assumed was his son tapped away at an iPod.

A small cough brought Blaine's attention back to the man in front of him. He blushed brightly before releasing Kurt's hand, staring at his lap in embarrassment as he realized he had been holding his hand the entire time he had been looking around (it's not his fault they were so soft). "Sorry," Blaine mumbled quietly. He heard Kurt chuckle softly and step away, back towards the computer with his own muttered, "It's fine."

Blaine gnawed on his lower lip nervously as he twisted his hands in his lap.

"So Blaine," Kurt began, making him glance back up from his lap, "it says your tumor's in your breast?"

"Uh," he stammered, blushing once more and looking away, "yeah. Breast cancer." No matter how stupid it may have seemed, Blaine was somewhat embarrassed to say he had breast cancer. He didn't have breasts. Whether he was gay or not, the male-human need to be seen as masculine and more manly than everyone else in the room was almost constantly present, and saying you had breast cancer certainly lowered your masculinity. Pink had never really been his color.

Kurt nodded absently and typed at his computer some more, the keys clicking loudly with each tap. Blaine squirmed in his seat and clenched his jaw, wondering what he could possibly be typing. He knew there wasn't any wrong answer to Kurt's question, but he still felt like the man was judging him, like his answers needed to be perfect and correct or else he'd fail and not even be allowed to receive the chemotherapy. There was an awkward pause after Kurt stopped typing, and Blaine could feel his gaze on the side of his face. "Do you want to talk about it?" Kurt asked after a moment.

Blaine was startled. "I'm sorry?" he asked, eyebrows raised in question.

Kurt turned away from his computer so he was fully facing the scared little man sitting in the chair before him. "Your diagnosis?" he inquired with a comforting smile. "Some people like to talk about it their first time in here. One woman with ovarian cancer went into full detail of her detection -" Kurt visibly shuddered as Blaine let out a small, almost silent chuckle. "Never getting that out of my head, that's for sure."

"Um…" Blaine began with a shake of his head. How exactly would he start this?

Kurt quickly shook his own head, a worried look on his face. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he reassured quickly, placing a firm hand on Blaine's shoulder. His eyes were clouded with concern, making them an almost gray color and Blaine found himself entranced once more.

"No," he said after a moment, turning his gaze back to the hands in his lap. "No, it's fine." Blaine gave him a small smile and nod as Kurt took his hand off his shoulder, retracting the warmth and comfort that had spread through his body with the touch, as well. He felt suddenly empty as Kurt went back to the computer, glancing back at Blaine every few seconds as he waited for him to begin. "Uh," he stuttered, mentally cursing himself for his fabulous vocabulary of the morning, "I first found the lump… in the shower." Blaine glanced up from his lap at that to see Kurt's reaction, hoping he wouldn't notice his reddening cheeks. He didn't usually tell attractive men he just met about his time in the shower, but Kurt just looked at him from over his shoulder and grinned, giving him an encouraging nod to keep going.

Taking a deep breath, Blaine stared intently at his hands before closing his eyes and recalling the morning a few days previous.

* * *

><p>tbc<p>

Don't own anything. :)

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	2. Chapter 2

"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeah!" Blaine sang loudly, jumping a few inches off the ground before landing and almost slipping on the wet, tiled floor. He didn't let that ruin his performance, however, as he pointed out into the invisible crowd and sang into the bar of soap, "Make meeee! Feel like I'm living a - teenage dream! The way you turn me on!" He continued dancing and singing in the confined space of his shower, the steam clearing his sinuses of the cold he had had for over a week. He imagined the loud beat of the spray against the tiles as the roaring crowd, chanting his name and screaming their love. Blaine loved being a lawyer - the rush he got in front of a jury, the butterflies that erupted in his stomach as he awaited the verdict, the glares he got from the opposing attorneys - but performing had always been his dream. The adrenaline rush he got every time he stood upon a stage would never cease to leave him breathless and wanting more, more, more.

Just as Blaine was about to begin his next number - a fantastic rendition of Train's "Hey Soul Sister" where he sang both the lead vocals and the ukulele accompaniment - he ran the bar of soap over his chest quickly in lue of taking the time to actually wash his body. He stopped short, however, when he felt a small lump near his left nipple. Standing in the middle of his shower, the spray beating heavily on his back, Blaine frowned and ran a hand over the small bump once more.

Yep.

There was a lump there.

Blaine's frown deepened as he poked and prodded it some more. It was roughly the same size of a dime, rock-hard and solid as could be. He remembered his health teacher at Dalton all those years ago, old and wrinkly Mrs. German. He could practically hear her scolding them all. "Girls aren't the only ones who get breast cancer," she had practically yelled one day. "Cancer is bad. Get check-ups regularly. Don't have sex or you'll get someone pregnant and die." She was a useless teacher, really.

Blaine quickly shook his head and rid that thought from his brain, however. That was impossible. Why the hell would he have cancer? He didn't smoke. He hardly drank. He exercised regularly and ate his vegetables. There was no possible way he had breast cancer.

With one more shake of his head and a scoff for good measure, Blaine continued running the bar of soap haphazardly over his body. It was probably just a bruise or something - a scab he couldn't exactly see at the moment or a callous even - and he was overreacting.

And besides, whether it's a heart attack or a heart break, the show must go on.

Blaine was distracted all day while at work. He had called his secretary the wrong name, had spilled coffee all over the paperwork covering his desk, and had completely forgotten the meeting he had planned with his newest client. He had hardly paid any attention as she went over the details of her case, talking animatedly and gesturing her hands about her head. When she had finally ran out of things to say, Blaine thanked the Lord before nodding his head in fake interest and insisting that he would call her soon to set up another appointment.

As he locked up his office door after gathering up his coat and briefcase to cut the day short and head home early, Blaine almost ran straight into Wes and David. The three had been working together for a couple of years now and while Blaine would consider them to be his friends, he always felt like some sort of third wheel when he hung out with the two outside of work. Wes and David had apparently gone to high school and college together, best friends since the moment they met. They were constantly flirting with the secretaries and temps and had hundreds upon thousands of inside jokes that always made Blaine feel uncomfortable and out of place.

But they were friendly and kind and always more than willing to buy a cab for Blaine if he was too hammered to drive.

"Blaine!" David exclaimed, clapping a hand on his shoulder and shaking him slightly. Blaine just forced a smile and a nod in greeting.

"Hey," he mumbled, with a small grin, thinking of the fastest and nicest way of ditching them and running out of the building to his car.

"We were just about to head out for lunch. That new sushi place opened up around the corner and we have to get there before all the California rolls are sold out," Wes said, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet as he buttoned up his pea coat quickly. "You coming?" He smiled down at Blaine with wide eyes that made him feel guilty and glance down at his shoes.

"Uh, I can't," he stammered, sending a forced, apologetic smile their way. "I'm just... not feeling too well."

David grimaced as Wes frowned understandably. "Still got that cold, huh?" David asked with a knowing nod.

Blaine hesitated before nodding a bit, as well. "Yeah, that's it," he mumbled, watching as they called out their goodbyes and walked away, laughing noisily at something David had stood there, staring at his shoes in thought. He could have told them. He should have told them. But really, he didn't want to worry them. He didn't want to bother them with something trivial like a weird lump on Blaine's chest. It was probably nothing and making them freak out about it would just be a waste of time.

That's when Blaine decided that whatever was on his chest wasn't going to rule his life. Whether it was cancer or a bruise or whatever, it wasn't the boss of him. He spent the first eighteen years of his life constantly being told what to do by his father - it wasn't like being a lawyer was every little boy's dream - and he wasn't going to let some lump ruin his freedom for the rest of his life. No way.

With that thought, he started for the front door of the office, pulling his phone out of his pocket on the way.

"Blaine," came a sultry voice from the other line as Blaine pressed the phone between his shoulder and cheek while unlocking the door of his car.

"How quickly can you get to my apartment?" asked Blaine, throwing his briefcase into the backseat and pulling the door shut after him.

The man hummed low in his throat as if he was deeply in thought even though Blaine knew better. "About... twenty minutes. Why?" he asked, voice sickly sweet and innocent.

"I just... Be there," Blaine said, nodding to himself and twisting the key in the ignition.

"Bossy," he quipped, his voice teasing yet slightly frustrated. He wasn't used to Blaine telling him what to do, and he wasn't exactly sure if he liked it.

"Sebastian," Blaine sighed out, exasperated as he put the phone back between his shoulder and cheek while pulling out of the parking lot.

"Fine," Sebastian snapped. "I'll be there soon. But I'm getting my chest waxed at 3 and I swear to God, Blaine, if you make me miss that appointment you will owe me big time."

Blaine let out a shaky breath, throwing his head back heavily onto the pillow as Sebastian trailed feather-light kisses up his thigh before sinking his mouth down onto him. Blaine could feel Sebastian breathing heavily through his nose as his hands ran up and down Blaine's tan thighs.

Twisting his hands in the sheets around him, Blaine let the pleasure cloud over his brain, his problems and stress of the day fading away as Sebastian hollowed out his cheeks and sucked him in even deeper. It took all of his self-control not to thrust up into the warm confinement of Sebastian's wet, hot mouth whose tongue was doing things Blaine had only ever imagined before they met.

He had met Sebastian at one of the many bars Wes and David had dragged him to. He was apparently an old friend of theirs and the only other gay guy they knew, so obviously they tried to set the two of them up, claiming they would be the absolute perfect couple. After the first failed date, Blaine was going to apologize and ask if they could just be friends, but before Blaine could even start, Sebastian had slammed him up against his front door and attacked his mouth with his own. Blaine really didn't mind.

They kept the act up, failed date after failed date, always ending in some of the best sex either of them had ever had. They eventually just dropped the dates all together, calling each other up whenever they needed to relieve some tension or just didn't have any plans on a Saturday time Blaine had asked Sebastian to be his fake-date to a coworker's wedding. After the night full of groans and moans and "You so owe me, Anderson. You're lucky I'm not making you give me a blowjob under this table right now"s, Blaine remembered why they didn't actually date.

"Fuuuck," Blaine breathed out, untangling one of his hands from the sheets and threading his fingers through Sebastian's hair instead, pressing him down further as he let out a moan. Sebastian's hands ran up Blaine's thighs and over his stomach, his nails scratching through the hairs upon his chest. His hands seemed to leave trails of warmth along Blaine's body and he actually had to bite his lip to stop the ridiculously loud moan that threatened to escape as Sebastian flicked his left nipple. The moan was cut short, however, when he felt a finger venture out a bit to the right.

And that's when it happened.

It hit the lump.

Blaine's eyes snapped open as his jaw clenched and his fingers went slack. His whole body stiffened as Sebastian removed his mouth and leaned up to stare at his fingers.

"What the hell is that?" he asked, voice full of disgust as he poked the lump with a stiff finger. Blaine slapped his hand away and glared down at him.

"It's nothing. I-I don't know." He blushed a bit and glanced away towards the wall. He had never shown weakness in front of Sebastian. He had never really showed anything other than want and lust. "It's like a bruise... or something."

"What the hell kind of bruise is hard?" Sebastian questioned, prodding it once more, eyes narrowed in confusion and mouth turned down in disgust. "Gross," he muttered, almost to himself.

Blaine just let out an angry sigh, glaring down at Sebastian with furrowed eyebrows. He shook his head and threaded his fingers through Sebastian's hair once more, this time with a firmer grip and a slight growl. "Just shut up," he mumbled, guiding Sebastian's head back down and ignoring his grumblings. Sebastian complied with a shrug, but Blaine wasn't finding the pleasure nearly as distracting as before.

Blaine readjusted himself on the table once more, the paper beneath him crackling with each move. He swallowed silently and glanced at his watch for the umpteenth time, the hands in almost exactly the same position they were before. Letting out a sigh, he began drumming his fingers nervously, trying to distract himself from his thoughts and the slight pain on the left side of his chest.

A few days after the incident with Sebastian, Blaine had taken it upon himself to call the hospital and set up an appointment, just to reassure himself that there was truly nothing wrong with him. Once called into the office, his physician had felt the lump before immediately scowling and sending him off to the oncology ward. Still denying the impossible, Blaine was escorted to all of the necessary tests - a heavy feel up from his doctor followed by a mammogram followed by a biopsy - before being left in a room for twenty minutes, waiting for the results. He tried to occupy his mind, thinking about all the things he had to do at work the next day, which laundry detergent to buy at the store the next time he was there, and how the ending of the latest episode of one of his favorite TV shows had completely shocked him a few nights previous. He refused to acknowledge the sharp pain on the left side of his chest and the ghosts of cold fingers on his skin.

There was a light knock on the thick wooden door before it opened timidly and a pretty Indian woman stuck her head in. When Blaine had first met Dr. Mehra, he wanted to like her. He really did. Her smile was nice and warm, and her handshake was firm and confident. She seemed good at her job and professional, yet not too much so where you just wanted to strangle her. Blaine figured that if she hadn't been running ridiculous, unnecessary tests on him and they had met under different circumstances, they could have even been friends.

As she walked in, her smile was small and sympathetic almost, making Blaine's gut twist in fear and uncertainty. He swallowed the lump in his throat and just focused on not puking. "So, Blaine," Dr. Mehra began, sitting down on the chair in front of her computer and turning to look him in the eyes. She clutched the papers in her lap tightly and crossed her legs. "I got your test results back and they aren't very good."

Blaine opened and closed his mouth a few times before clamping it shut and allowing himself to take the time and think. "What... do you mean by that exactly?" he managed to choke out after a moment, readjusting himself once more, cursing silently at the loud crinkling noise and willing his stomach to calm the fuck down because now was not the time to poop his pants.

Dr. Mehra sighed and took out a dark picture from the stack of papers in her hands. She passed it silently to Blaine, pretending to ignore his shaking hand and pale complexion. "You see that white spot right there?" she asked softly after a moment, circling a small, dime-sized dot with the end of her pen. She glanced up at him through her eyelashes and took his almost-audible swallow as an answer. Nodding slightly and sitting back in her chair, Dr. Mehra said, "That's a tumor."

Blaine brought his eyes up immediately and thrust the picture back towards his doctor, as if refusing to glance down at it again. "But... I-I don't understand," he stuttered. "I can't have a tumor. I-I just - I can't." He shook his head and fiddled with his fingers in his lap once she had taken the picture of his mammogram results back. "I don't smoke, I hardly drink, I recycle. When I was in seventh grade, I even volunteered to help clean up this pond near my school once. I just... I can't have a-a... tumor or whatever. Your machine must be wrong."

He continued to nod his head determinedly and hold his head high, seeming to think that if he pretended this all wasn't true than it actually wouldn't be. Dr. Mehra would laugh and wag her finger, shouting, "You got me!" before bringing out a clean mammogram from behind her back.

But that didn't happen.

Dr. Mehra shook her head slowly from side to side and gave him a small frown. "Blaine," she said softly, trying to catch his eye but failing miserably as he stared at the corner, blinking away tears. "The mammogram and the biopsy results both confirm my suspicions. I'm truly, terribly sorry, Blaine, but you have breast cancer."

Having the words "tumor" and "lump" and "mammogram" thrown around was one thing, but hearing the word, the whole word with no pretense or double meanings or possibility that it was all just a mistake, was something completely different. Everything seemed to go fuzzy around the edges, and Blaine didn't know if it was because he was crying or because his brain had short-circuited. He didn't hear much of the rest of the conversation, words like, "too large," "surgery," and "chemo" sticking out among others. Before he even understood what was happening, a piece of paper was being thrust into his hands and he was walking towards the elevator at the end of the hall.

He walked home in a daze, hoping that the mile and a half to his apartment would help clear his head, but the thoughts just got worse as his footsteps became slower and heavier. His brain seemed to be in a permanent fog as his throat clogged shut and his hands trembled. He could feel every beat of his heart throughout his entire body, as if it was alerting him of its last endeavor. He was having trouble breathing, even forgetting to do it at times. His eyes burned from unshed tears and the wind howling around him. The paper he held crinkled and folded as he balled his hands into fists, willing himself not to cry as he stepped into his apartment building and began ascending the stairs.

Once through his front door, Blaine didn't take off his shoes, nor his jacket. He dropped the paper to the ground without notice and walked towards the couch. He sat down and stare at the wall. Just stared. And thought.

He thought about his parents and how they would react to the situation.

He thought of Sebastian and his old boyfriends and that one girlfriend from seventh grade.

He thought about his job and Wes and David.

He thought about Mrs. Hooper, the old lady three doors down who would bring over tea and cakes and clean his apartment every once in a while.

He thought about all of the things he had done in his life.

He thought about all of the things he would never be able to do in his life.

Because he had cancer now.

Because he was going to die.

* * *

><p>I know you usually get biopsy results like the day later over the phone but Blaine's doctor is just really, really nice. And fast. So ha.<p>

I don't own anything :)

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